Tuesday, 20 May 2014

Effervescent. The nature of these volatile memories. Walk with me, you exist for me as but a figment of my imagination. Look at these corridors, they are the hallways of my dusty mind and here hangs a painting of you. Cordoned off, you see, I'm only allowed to enter in the darkest of my moments. There's too much pain here. Why is the dark established so firmly and the light so fast fading? Hold on to me. But I can't anymore. If ignorance is bliss, then to forget is a blessing. You're running out of time. I know. We all are, really. Some faster than others though. I do have desires to leave early, there must be a better world beyond this.
But you don't get to choose when you leave. So we pretend the darkness doesn't exist. We wait, biding or time.There is a way out. And one day we'll escape this.

Friday, 16 May 2014

We owned the night. Every star looked like it shone out of the purple dimness for us, and for us alone. Our feet dangled so many floors above the earth. There's always pleasure breaking the rules when risking your life is involved. 'No practical jokes' I remember you warn me, as you sit on the wall bordering the terrace, a breath away from falling into the abyss below. I'm more afraid of heights than either one of you and I beg you to come back. But that was a week ago and tonight I'm sitting on the highest ledge next to you. The wind is harsh and beautifully cold and our innocence is so beautifully unscarred.
It's a full moon night and we howl because we had to be wilder and louder than anything in the darkness. Eventually we end up lying on our backs staring at the infinity of lights that was always meant to be ours. Our secrets and whispers are drowned out by the wind and our laughter is carried away. One night out of the many crazy nights on the terrace, it rained. God that was rare in this country and ever so beautiful for it. Exotic, even. The streetlights didn't dim out here and we watched our world remake itself before our eyes. I saw you weep once, once only and I don't remember anything crushing me so immediately and so much. Its easy to forget you're not invincible, too. You still wouldn't let me hold you, you were too busy looking after me to let me comfort you and upturn the balance. That January I left home everyday with a broken heart and found home with you. The weather was terrible and the world had changed again, but it was no longer beautiful, the stars no longer shone for us and it hadn't rained in a while. The terrace lay dusty and the winds were colder than was beautiful, and I didn't find the words to whisper to you under the blanket of the stars, to explain this pain, but you understood and you held me till I slept, it was my only refuge from the world I didn't know anymore. PS I can't find pictures I can post of these nights, I don't think we took very many.PPS I think I was the happiest in my life at this point.

Monday, 12 May 2014

I woke up one April morning to find the roofs and roads blanketed in yellow flowers and thought it was the most beautiful thing ever. I got caught in the rain back home from class and enjoyed every minute of it. "You actually like getting caught in the rain ?" they asked incredulously. I was brought up in a desert, I thought, you will never hear me complain about the rain.

I found home with girls who had lost mothers, faces that had lost colour and eyes that refused to see the light and hearts that knew nothing but darkness. People found smiles marked in me where they should've found sighs and I learnt to be grieved for the right reasons, because up until now I'd been doing it all wrong. The spot on the ground where my breaths ended and began in prayer knew all my secrets. and tears found my eyes when I didn't want them to and disappeared when I needed them the most. Burdah became my favourite tune and my fingers found the replay button every time Mesut Kurtis was on. I rediscovered human insensitivity, and I told my heart that this was home now, and it beat like it wanted out of this body. My skin resigned in flakes that covered the floor and my hair receded to a brittle consistency, refusing to accept change. This is home, I tell myself even though my dreams are discontent here and even though I know back there isn't really home anymore.

The first time I left everything I called home, I was eleven years old and I believed that my favourite places and faces would never forget me. But years later the tides still washed up remnants of broken bodies and the wind still whistled even though I wasn't there to hear it and the corners of my house were home to somebody else's fears and dreams and echoed somebody else's footsteps. I became a distant memory to the corridors I had lived in and loved and when I was done weeping the world didn't recognise me anymore and I didn't belong, but I had long stopped wanting to.

When I was sixteen, I felt my heart break for the first time , and I was convinced the pain would never cease. When nothing was familiar anymore and the only path ahead was shaky and insecure, I found my self frozen in place, afraid of moving ahead and falling, and yet not wanting to be left behind.

So when things are unfamiliar again, and the faces blur into strangers, when the world has erased my space, I convince myself with quotes and phrases; until the answer comes to me so clearly, I wonder if it was there all along and I refused to see it. No place here is ever meant to be mine. Nothing in this world truly owns me and I will never belong to anyone or anything here. I do not own this body , this soul, this heart, they answer to Someone else and no place in this dunya was ever meant to be home.